


Thirty

by Native



Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types
Genre: (it's Dragon Age after all), Alternate Universe - College/University, Angst, College Age AU, Everyone Has Issues, F/M, Slow Build
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-09-20
Updated: 2014-09-20
Packaged: 2018-02-18 03:34:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 4,372
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2333750
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Native/pseuds/Native
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><em>A scholarship student — a nobody with no family — a nobody with nothing — a nobody and Law wasn’t even her major — and Nathaniel had done his utmost to muster the perfect, impossible mix of fearful but not too much and submissive but just enough to please his father and said, “Yes,” to all of the above and loathed her for it.</em> — College AU, from the tumblr setting College Age.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Silence

**Author's Note:**

> A story in thirty words-inspired stories happening in the College AU from [tumblr](http://college-age-au.tumblr.com/).

When Solona works, it’s as if nothing matters anymore: the earth could tremble and the windows shatter, and it wouldn’t be enough to deter her from her goal, it seems.

Nathaniel remembers a time when he loathed her for it, from her ability to pull relevant resources faster than anyone else to the thin line of her mouth when she poured over them, always ready to quickly jot down a word or chunks of sentences that, put together, would form syntheses and analysis too good to be true; and how her gaze would go right through everything as if it wasn’t here, as if it wasn’t important, right through him even when he was seated directly in front of her in the library.

Nathaniel remembers when during their first semester, their Constitutional Law professor had taken one of her papers as an example. Rendon had heard of it, of course, and asked, because that was something he would do, not “Why her?”, but “Why not you?” and he hadn’t been able to cobble an answer beyond, “Because of this girl,” and, of course, it was the wrong one (somehow, it always was).

A scholarship student — a nobody with no family — a nobody with nothing — a nobody and Law wasn’t even her major — and Nathaniel had done his utmost to muster the perfect, impossible mix of fearful but not too much and submissive but just enough to please his father and said, “Yes,” to all of the above and loathed her for it.


	2. Tough

Nathaniel is waiting in line for his coffee when he sees the twins enter the shop. The Templar pledges who have been layering rumors upon rumors about Solona’s academic performances, and then Solona’s background, and then Solona’s other performances, if you know what I mean, don’t.

They seem tired, the both of them, who sport matching hoodies and are decidedly less proper than usual (and they usually are very proper, her in particular, he has noticed), a bit paler, even a bit cold, it seems. Probably an all-nighter, and then he hears about _what that girl and his twin brother of hers must get up to when they’re alone_ and he starts so badly he thinks everyone is going to turn and look at him, except it doesn’t happen.

Nothing happens.

He sees them get in line, and wait, leaning a bit against one another, and for a shameful second, he almost wonders —

Years after, neither the Templars nor many others have stopped talking; about Solona, about Daylen, about the two of them, and like that day, it just kind of rolls off them, like water, like they’re indestructible (and he remembers loathing her for that, too).


	3. Smile

According to a probably non-representative sample of students, Daylen’s smile is a thing of legend. It’s a bit crooked, almost fragile, like teasing something wonderful out of hiding, something beautiful in its vulnerability, you see, and if the rumor is true, _poems_ have been written about it.

That Nathaniel thinks that Solona’s would be similar is to be expected; at the same time, he’s not overly surprised when he turns out to be in the wrong, because that’s just what she does to him (and he’s just starting to accept it).

In fact, her smile is a perfect curve with the right amount of crinkling along the eyes, he discovers, and it’s not until he hears her barking a laugh almost despite herself much later that he understands the depth of his mistake.


	4. Storm

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A.S.S.E.T. : fictional non-profit organization for education.  
> M.A.G.E. : fictional campus organization for LGBT rights.  
> MSF: real-life organization _Médecins Sans Frontières_ (Doctors Without Borders).

A.S.S.E.T. is a non-profit organization that deals in helping impoverished, unprivileged people access to education. They work in dirt poor neighborhoods, they work with the social system, they do campaigns and they lobby and Solona will not _let it go_ even if Meredith Stannard is thinking of pressuring FU’s dean into rescinding the scholarships of students involved with “non-approved projects”, and of course it wouldn’t be one of those — and that’s not even touching on the fact that she’s M.A.G.E., too.

It can’t happen, Nathaniel reasons as he pours over his books like any other day. Finals are approaching, and usually he would be in the library, except he’s not and while Sigrun seems mildly annoyed, she also seems kinder than usual; Velanna is the opposite, all pursed lips and thinly veiled exasperation when they cross paths in the apartment.

 

When he finally emerges — to do the weekly shopping of all things — it’s to find Daylen hesitating between two brands of rice in the middle of the shop. He exhales when it’s clear that Solona is not, in fact, in the vicinity and doesn’t dwell on the thought, instead choosing to engage in polite, if not a little boring, conversation with his good friend.

A few minutes later, Nathaniel realizes that he never knew that Daylen was M.A.G.E., though _of course_ he is; what’s surprising is that he’s not A.S.S.E.T., too, but both are simply explained by the fact that he lacks the physical possibility, the _time_ to do more than sometimes being there _and_ doing everything else, med program and volunteering and MSF and, smiling, you know, my sister is what she is.

He doesn’t know how it goes from this to him trying to enroll Daylen’s help in convincing Solona of her folly only to be met by a clearly unimpressed reaction: a hint of disappointment in blue grey eyes and a tightening jaw all too similar to another, feeling too much like a punch to the stomach. He barely remembers — shouting, almost, in the deserted aisle, about _utter stupidity — think of the future, think of what you could do, think of what_ she _will do — it’s not worth it_.

 _It’s not worth it_ , and he leaves his cart behind and walks home and neither Sigrun nor Velanna speak to him that day.

Nathaniel is an idiot who needs to apologize and Solona is an idiot who doesn’t know what backing down even _means_.

The next time he sees her, it’s because she’s the one who opens the door to the twins’ apartment when he’s certain that there’s a major M.A.G.E. rally currently ongoing.

\- “I’m actually more involved in the organizational side of things. Speeches, sometimes, but well… not tonight.”

It’s just like her to see right through him, and Nathaniel wants to put his hand through the wall, only not really. He wants to say that it’s not fair, that it’s not just, that he’ll support her, them, whatever the fuck happens, that he’ll help. Instead, he says,

\- “You could always do it later. If you finish what you have to here, hell, you could do it faster than anyone else, if you finish it — _when_ you finish it… after that, you’re free to pursue anything. Think of the consequences, Solona, think about what you’re doing, putting all you’ve worked for in jeopardy? Is this really w—”

\- “Yes,” she says, and he stands there, in the square of light by the door, feeling like his breath was knocked out of him. Her voice, her voice did not waver and when he looks into her eyes for the first time since they’ve started talking, he sees the usual shade of grey and blue — and no compromise.

When Nathaniel gets home that day, he takes water and snacks from the kitchen, settles at his desk with his laptop and a pile of notes and starts cramming for Feddic’s “Corporate and Capital Market Law Policy” class. He decidedly chooses not to dwell on the fact that he already knows the material because he got his Economics units out of the way in the hope of studying for the Polisci ones with Solona.

(Solona may not be here for much longer, though. One less thing to worry about when going home to see Rendon.)

To his great surprise, and despite everything, they actually get together at the twins’ to study for these thrice-damned classes she’s so good at. He kind of never leaves until the night before what Sigrun calls the MAD Show starts; it’s Daylen’s doing, as always, though it takes more than a little huffing from his roommates to decide him (he has the feeling that they would have run him off the apartment if he hadn’t given in at some point, and all this is ridiculous).

Nathaniel is an idiot who needs to apologize (again), and Solona’s notes are meticulous and perfect in their own way but nigh incomprehensible to someone who doesn’t have her to translate them. Lone words are concepts and connexions alike and he stops trying to read them after a while because, frankly, this admiration thing is starting to get out of hand.

Daylen is a fixture in their study sessions. Nathaniel realizes early on that they would go about things in pretty much the same way if he wasn’t here, but it makes him feel more at home than anything else. (One time or two, when the brother chides his sister to go eat something already and when the sister chides her brother to go to sleep already, he wonders why Thomas, Delilah and him don’t have this. He gives up on the answer almost instantly.)

All three cook and he’s kind of a kitchen disaster, but they are patient and he only orders take-out once or twice (thrice, exactly); seeing Solona in jeans and a hoodie instead of her usual attire stops being weird at some point during the third day. (At some point during his second night, he vows to buy them a new couch. And to go get his pillow the next day, damn it.)

Finals are a jumble of things that could go wrong and the feeling that liquids are trying to squirm their way out of his brain. It’s like he can’t think — and wouldn’t _that_ be an issue now. He doesn’t see Daylen _at all_ for close to ten days and Solona seems to always be halfway between two doors; it’s a strange feeling, after the long days of mostly edible food, colored markers and news channels humming low in the background.

He thinks, “so that’s how it would be,” and less than twenty minutes after his last exam comes to an end, has to sit for a hour-long phone-call with Rendon, complete with a good thirty minutes dedicated to explain how people can dream themselves what they want but never fool anyone — nobodies that would never go anywhere — kids that didn’t have parents to teach them what was appropriate and what wasn’t and how things worked — not like Nathaniel, because for all his faults, he is a good son.

Nathaniel says “Yes,” of course.

The week after that, Meredith Stannard’s efforts — Councilor Karras’, really — are shot down rather spectacularly by national authorities particularly motivated by national outrage, and Nathaniel is an idiot too relieved for words.


	5. Snow

It’s suddenly November; the temperature drops. Solona buys Daylen a new pair of gloves and Daylen tries to always have coffee ready for when Solona gets up (more often than not, he leaves before she’s even awake). The insulation of their apartment isn’t too bad, which is a relief because the cold is a reminder of things not yet gone to rest.

As the fourth Thursday of the month approaches, they watch the campus empty and decide to do a big grocery run so as to avoid the fabled Thanksgiving madness that is supposed to happen any moment now, not that they’d know what it’s like, not really — it’s their first since they left Kinloch. When she tells Daylen that M.A.G.E. has something planned for those who don’t have anywhere else to be that day, he shrugs, and then looks at her, curious, for a moment, until she does the same.

The day before, Solona wakes up around 9 A.M. with a craving for eggs and toasts and hot chocolate. She doesn’t make it to the kitchen because, as she exits her room, she hears a loud noise coming from her brother’s. When she knocks, her only answer is a muffled sound; she finds him buried under the duvet when she enters, the top of his head the only visible part of his body. The shutters are open (that would have been the noise); it’s snowing outside, and a chill creeps up her spine as she approaches the window.

When, after a few moments, she turns to Daylen, he gives her a sleepy smile. She goes to sit near him then, and he half-rolls, half-shimmies out of his cocoon to free some cover to wrap his sister in, too.

 

They’re awoken by a rather loud knock on the door some hours later. The temperature, under the thick duvet and next to the human furnace that is her brother, is almost unbearable (but the good kind, if such a thing exists). Solona would happily stay right where she is, but whoever is trying to reach them is the persistent type, because soon enough, he rings the doorbell and then knocks some more.

Both twins groan, but Solona alone rolls from the bed. She doesn’t even try to suppress her yawn as she exits the bedroom and goes for the hall; she would take a moment to wrestle her hair into some kind of bun, but finds that she actually just can’t be bothered to. It feels like it’s been years since the last time she was this relaxed, and right about now, she only wishes to bask in the feeling a little longer.

She doesn’t know what to expect when she opens the door. A neighbor? A salesman? _Jowan_ , or even _Anders_? The breeze that suddenly hits her is icy, and for a second, she wants nothing more than slink back under the covers and stick her soon to be freezing extremities on Daylen, but the sight of Nathaniel, arms wrapped up around himself, red-nosed with a scarf half-hiding his features stops dead that train of thought.

He looks miserable, between his clearly too light coat, the drenched jeans, the spots of color high on his cheekbones and that look, like a deer in headlights. He looks kind of adorable, too, and Solona can’t help the tiny surge of affection more than she can help the smile (she’ll blame it on the quiet morning watching snow fall later).

\- “Nathaniel,” she says, and that seems to get him out of his daze, “come on in, it’s freezing out here. What brings you?”

\- “Well,” he starts, and then bends to pick up two plastic bags propped up against the wall, “Sigrun and Velanna are already gone, _I’m_ leaving tomorrow morning and I realized… that we still had a lot of perishable around,” he says, lifting the things for emphasis as he enters the apartment, and, sure enough, Solona can see tomatoes, yogurts, even some kind of meat through the material, other things.

She shakes her head, still smiling (maybe even smiling a bit more),

\- “Better here than left to rot, but I’m not sure we have the space,” she says and then starts padding to the kitchen, but not before she takes one of the bag from Nathaniel. When she doesn’t hear movement behind her, she turns around to find him removing his shoes. His soaked, soaked shoes, and after having deposited her load on the table, she goes off on her own to the bathroom, mindful of her footsteps in case Daylen has fallen asleep again.

When Solona comes back with a towel in hand, she finds Nathaniel standing straight between the table and the kitchen counter; he seems tense, probably because of the cold, she reasons.

\- “Here,” she says, handing the towel to him when he turns, and she’s close enough to remark that he’s still shivering, “Let me get something of Daylen for you,” she adds after a last look to his sorry state.

\- “No,” he coughs then, “that’s fine, I wasn’t going to stay anyway,” he says, and his face seems even redder than when he entered. Maybe the clash between the outside cold and inside warmth, she muses before answering,

\- “No? We could really use your help if you would, though,” she says.

Anticipating Nathaniel’s inquiry as to why, she… opens the fridge.

\- “Alright, you weren’t kidding. Is there a zombie apocalypse coming and no one told me?” he says, clearly puzzled before the rows and rows of… full rows. Sure, there’s a space here and there, but a quick glance to his two bags is enough to assert that it’s not going to be feasible unless some laws of physics decide to give in somewhere.

\- “You haven’t seen the cupboards… we were just trying to avoid the Thanksgiving rush,” she says, almost sheepish.

\- “Well,” he kind of half-shrugs and smiles all at once, “I’ve already packed and I don’t anything better to do, so… as long as you’re not asking me to cook this time.”

Solona huffs lightly at that, amused :

\- “No no, you know the rules,” and then raises her hands when he tries to protest, “Now, let me get you some clothes before you catch your death, yes?”

 

A bit later, Nathaniel is swimming a tad in her twin’s clothing and she has taken advantage of him changing in their bathroom to change herself from her hoodie and pajama pants into some jeans and a t-shirt (and summarily brushed her hair, though it’s not, for once, tied). They’ve opened the shutters in the apartment, gone over the bags and the content of the fridge to decide what should be eaten first, and what could wait.

There’s only Daylen to wake up (in a moment, if he doesn’t by himself) and the hot chocolate they decided to treat themselves with to sip, something they do for a while in a companionable silence.

\- “So, you’re going home tomorrow? Your brother and sister will be there?” Solona asks, in that quiet, unassuming way of hers that has fooled more than one person into complacency.

\- “And our father,” Nathaniel says, strangely tense all of a sudden, but not as much as he would usually be when the subject comes up. Something has always bothered Solona about the way Nathaniel talks about Rendon Howe — the way he talks of this man to her, in particular, but she can’t see what the issue could be.

\- “Your siblings are still in high school, aren’t they?” she asks again, mostly to keep the seemingly sore subject at bay.

\- “Thomas is in his last year and Delilah in her first,” he answers, clearly more at ease, “He’ll probably come here next year.”

\- “Hmm. So, tell me, if you knew you were leaving tomorrow, why did you buy all these things?”

The silence is too sudden — too much like a stutter, really, a deadly hesitation — and so Nathaniel doesn’t fight it.

\- “How did you know?” he says, his shoulders dropping more than a little. When he passes his hand through his hair, Solona knows that he’s embarrassed, and she would have had him, right there (and that’s not even touching on the flush creeping up his neck).

\- “I didn’t. I just thought that some of these expiration dates were surprisingly far away,” Solona says, schooling her features as she does so.

For a few moments, Nathaniel looks vaguely scandalized, at how he has let himself be easily fooled or at how she decided to fool him, Solona doesn’t know. She sees him trying to talk, but backing off when he glances at her closed-off face, probably in fear of saying the wrong things.

With almost anyone else, at any other moment, she would have gone off on a glacial tangent about how Daylen and her didn’t need whatever this was, didn’t need that kind of kindness, _never again_ , but the Nathaniel she opened the door to seemed strangely placid, not at all like the man she had learned to know, the one who would debate her until asphyxia and try to engage her in mock-arguments and competitions.

Solona isn’t so prideful as to think that Nathaniel has come to them for help (even less for her in particular), but he seems to need it all the same and she doesn’t see a reason not to try and give it to him.

\- “The snow is really pilling up this year. It would be a shame if your mean of transportation was hindered by it, preventing you from going home tomorrow.”

She sees him trying to repress a shiver — a ripple, across his frame — with great difficulty, and how the curve of his mouth drops, trembles a little.

\- “It would be,” he says after a while, when the conflicting emotions warring on his face seems to have calmed a bit, “Thomas and Delilah would be really disappointed tough.”

 _This_ is something Solona can respect.

This is also the moment Daylen chooses to emerge, still half-asleep and soon half-asleep on the kitchen table and bothering his sister so that she makes him a hot chocolate.

 

The rest of the day is passed cooking, eating, re-watching Firefly episodes, cooking again, eating some more, re-watching the Firefly episodes that are left, rinse and repeat… until Nathaniel leaves in the dead of night, heavier by a few pounds (and lighter in other ways), much like the twins he leaves behind — who once again fall asleep together watching snow fall.


	6. Blade

There is an athletic meet coming, the last one before the year ends. Classes have been wrapped up a while ago, finals have come and gone; the results are not known yet, and so everyone seems, in Nathaniel’s eyes, like trapped in a strange sort of sludge-funk, with bouts of giddiness because well, it _ended_.

 

Sebastian comes to talk about the archery part of said meet; and to hang out, because it’s been a while and _you’ve become a hard guy to get a hold of, Nathaniel_ , because they’ve been friends for a long time and known each other even longer and it’s just what you do, you go see people, you talk with them, what’s going on with your life and everything else.

He’s not a bad guy, Sebastian. Not bad at all, even if he has, had a tendency to drink a little too often, smile a little too wide and use the impossible quality of his eyes to convince people to fall in bed with him a little too much. Saying that he has turned a new leaf would probably be a stretch at this point, but it’s a work in progress; it’s something.

Nathaniel remembers envying him once. Their families have always haunted the same circles, along with the Guerrin, Aeducan, Cousland, Valmont of the world; _soirées_ and summer vacations, _galas_ and charity events. Rendon wanted him to be close to the the Vael children like he wanted him to be close to any of the others because it would prove useful, one day.

He had obeyed, and then Sebastian had become something of a joke along the way, something his parents tried to hide, a threat, a menace, a danger, an example of what not to become, and Nathaniel had heeded the warning, of course — but still kept some kind of contact with him, even after Sebastian had been carted off to some religious boarding school.

Nathaniel remembers a boy that went from an ocean to a sea, to a lake and then no more than a puddle, shrinking and coming unto itself, emptying out, hollowed out, shallow. _An heir and a spare_ , Sebastian had told him once, still drunk from the previous night, and the rest had hung in the air, sharp and painful and bitter, because there was nothing to be said, because Nathaniel was what his friend wanted to be, had what his friend wanted to have.

Now Sebastian has a job in a coffee shop near campus, and it’s a bit ridiculous; his smiles stopped to be shy ten years ago, but here they are again, and it’s nostalgia at its finest, but the painful kind, it’s going in circles. Sebastian has a job in a coffee shop near campus and is thinking of switching his major to polisci and so he has heard of Solona, of course, has even met her, more than once, because he works at that place Daylen likes. Of course.

He doesn’t say much, Nathaniel. He lets his old friend have at it, lets him talk about how maybe it’s time to do something with himself, that maybe there’s something to say for doing good for the sake of doing good, he talks of _validation_ , of _freedom_ , and maybe there is a _compromise_ to be found between _life_ and _duty_ , Nathaniel, what do you think?

He thinks about the tilt of Solona’s mouth when she is displeased, and how she wield her intellect like shield and weapon both, and not for the first time, he wants to ask himself what she would say to all that but doesn’t (because it’s dangerous, he knows that much); there’s something on the tip of his tongue when he looks at Sebastian, but it eludes him, despite his best (desperate) efforts, and so he stays silent for a long time.

\- “I think it’s a path worth trying, Seb. I think you’re on the right track,” he finally says, but as he utters the words, he feels— wrongness, seeping all over him, and his throat constrict.


	7. Wind

It’s a punch to the plexus.

He’s walking down the corridor to the faculty office one moment, and then the next he looks by the window and Solona is just below, struggling with her hair; it’s loose — a rare sight — and disheveled.

Winter has finally relaxed his grip; if not for the coming storm, the weather outside would be pleasing.

The trees in the courtyard, just almost green again, bend and fold as dark locks frame Solona’s face, rebelling and flying all around as she tries, with little success, to trap them again.

He can almost see the flat line of her mouth, the pinched skin between her eyebrows.

He can almost _taste_ it.

Nathaniel thinks and will remember thinking, in the silence of the hallway—


End file.
